A primarily internet-based musician who writes songs on all sorts of stuff, though his more popular songs tend to cater to the nerd or pop-culture crowd. You probably know him best as the writer of Portal's ending song, "Still Alive". He also gained fame before that for his "Thing-A-Week" series of albums, wherein he challenged himself to write and record one song a week for an entire year, and actually did it.

Notable for being one of the first musicians to fully embrace the online model of earning money for his songs - most of his songs are available free on his website, if you want to dig through his blog, but they're also all for sale through a variety of media. He also uses the Internet to gauge where to perform - if enough fans petition him, he'll plan a concert for you.

He often performs with Paul and Storm, and has done collaborations with MC Frontalot. He has been involved in several RiffTrax, including playing some songs before the live Plan 9 from Outer Space. He's the resident musician on the NPR game show Ask Me Another. He is also the "Official Contributing Troubadour" of Popular Science magazine, and sang the opening theme for their podcast. He also has a handful of songs featured in Rock Band. He's also long-time friends with John Hodgman, has written songs for Hodgman's book tours (which he often participates in), and has appeared on all three audiobooks for Hodgman's Complete World Knowledge series. Basically, he's popular, is what we're getting at.

In other media, Coulton worked with Comic Book writer Greg Pak on a comic miniseries/graphic novel based on the characters from many of his songs, named Code Monkey Save World. The Kickstarter project finished with 872% of its goal.

Anti-Christmas Song: "Chiron Beta Prime", framed as a Christmas family letter... after humanity lost a Robot War and the narrator's family has been banished to an asteroid mining colony named Chiron Beta Prime.

Don't You Like It?: The Evil Overlord narrating "Skullcrusher Mountain" is trying so hard to please his captive love interest, but doesn't quite understand that she wouldn't like a half-pony, half-monkey monster.

Gold Digger: "Millionaire Girlfriend" has an average guy daydreaming about having one.

"Till the Money Comes" is about a guy who hates his wife but decides to hang around until she comes into money so that he can divorce her and take half of it.

Golden Mean Fallacy: In "Re: Your Brains", Bob's idea of a "compromise" for Tom not opening the door for him and his zombie horse is "If you open up the door, we'll all come inside and eat your brains."

Gratuitous French: Je Suis Rick Springfield is written entirely in poor French. In his live shows, Coulton insists that it's the character's bad French, and not his. The bridge, presumably from the viewpoint of the people "Rick" is talking to, hangs a lampshade:

Love Martyr: The narrator of "Betty and Me." Betty repeatedly cheats on him and insults him and he's conned out of money by the other man. He still shows devotion to Betty. While he is honestly too stupid to realize that Betty is cheating on him, he just kind of accepts the insults.

"I Feel Fantastic" is a subversion. The guy with a different pill for every single occasion of his day is perfectly happy being drugged up to the max, even if we, the listener, are aware of how terrible it is.

"Shop Vac" includes the line "I like that Starbucks here, it's better than the other one / 'Cause the other one's not as good." The bland, hollow, circular reasoning fits well with the song's theme of the bland, hollow, circular life the protagonists are leading.

In "Betty and Me", Dr. Martin's method of making a Designer Baby is described as "legal in the states where it wasn't banned".

"World of Cardboard" Speech: "I Crush Everything" is one of these in song form. The reason the giant squid hates himself is because while he just wants to make friends with the dolphins and play with the pretty white ships, he can't do it without breaking them.

You Are Not Alone: "I'm Your Moon". Even if Pluto is no longer one of the planets, its moon Charon is still there for it.

Your Cheating Heart: Betty of "Betty and Me" cheats on her husband with Dr. Martin, though the poor sap is completely oblivious.

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